funsec mailing list archives
RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses
From: Larry Seltzer <Larry () larryseltzer com>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:54:34 -0400
There is a more scientific way of measuring real proactive detection
of AV products on future malware - it is called "proactive testing" or "retrospective testing". The idea is to measure, say, 3-month old AV product against real field viruses that appeared within these last 3 months. I think "retrospective" is the apt term; "proactive" doesn't fit the definition. This tells you how good your product was 3 months ago. I do agree it gives you a better picture of how good your product was at that point than testing fake viruses does today, but clearly it's not the same thing. It also requires you to collect a large and representative sample of malware, which can be hard to do if you're not in the business full-time. I've been in the position of testing heuristic AV protection and what CR did is very tempting. I considered it and was talked out of it. The alternatives weren't very good. Larry Seltzer eWEEK.com Security Center Editor http://security.eweek.com/ http://blog.eweek.com/blogs/larry%5Fseltzer/ Contributing Editor, PC Magazine larryseltzer () ziffdavis com _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
Current thread:
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses, (continued)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Drsolly (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Fergie (Aug 16)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Peter Kosinar (Aug 16)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Nick FitzGerald (Aug 16)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Peter Kosinar (Aug 16)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Fergie (Aug 16)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Michal Zalewski (Aug 16)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Blanchard_Michael (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses security curmudgeon (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Valdis . Kletnieks (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Dude VanWinkle (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Larry Seltzer (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses David Harley (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Drsolly (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Drsolly (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Blue Boar (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Blanchard_Michael (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses der Mouse (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Michal Zalewski (Aug 17)
- Re: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Peter Kosinar (Aug 17)
- RE: Consumer Reports Slammed for Creating 'Test' Viruses Larry Seltzer (Aug 17)